General election 2024 results: your MP for Bethnal Green and Stepney
Labour’s Rushana Ali won by a sliver in the hotly contested seat of Bethnal Green & Stepney with independent Ajmal Masroor close behind. See the full results.
This morning, the news was out that Sir Keir Starmer had made history and won the general election with a landslide, but who did the people of Bethnal Green & Stepney vote for here in Tower Hamlets?
It was a tight race in this constituency. We knew there was a concerted campaign by independent Ajmal Masroor to topple Labour and get rid of Rushanara Ali, who has been MP for Bethnal Green and Bow (now Bethnal Green and Stepney) since 2010.
Back in 2019, Rushanara Ali won 72.7% of votes and had a majority of 37,524, but this year there wasn’t a lot separating her from Masroor. Here are the final results.
| Party | Votes No | Vote % |
| Labour Party (Rushanara Ali) | 15,896 | 34.10% |
| Independent (Ajmal Masroor) | 14,207 | 30.50% |
| Green Party (Phoebe Gill) | 6,391 | 13.70% |
| Liberal Democrat (Rabina Khan) | 4,777 | 10.20% |
| Reform UK (Peter Sceats) | 1,964 | 4.20% |
| Conservative (Oscar Reaney) | 1,920 | 4.10% |
| Animal Welfare Party (Vanessa Hudson) | 348 | 0.70% |
| Independent (Sham Uddin) | 325 | 0.70% |
| Independent (Md Somon Ahmed) | 315 | 0.70% |
| Independent (Reggie Adams) | 271 | 0.60% |
| Social Democratic Party (Jon Mabbutt) | 233 | 0.50% |
Labour’s share of votes in Bethnal Green and Stepney was down by 39.4% since 2019, but Ali has kept her position after a dramatic six weeks, winning a majority of 1,689.
Across the borough, we’ve seen independent candidates like Fiona Lali in Stratford and Bow launch some impassioned, anti-Labour campaigns, but they didn’t translate into significant votes. On the other hand, in Bethnal Green and Stepney, Masroor and his pro-Palestinian supporters posed a real threat to Ali, fracturing her majority.
In Bethnal Green and Stepney, turnout was the highest across Tower Hamlets’ three constituencies at 57% but had still decreased by 8% since the last election in 2019. Nationally, voter turnout was significantly low compared to the last general election, declining from 67.3% in 2019 to 60% yesterday.
2024 results across Tower Hamlets
While Rushanara Ali clung on by a slim margin in Bethnal Green & Stepney, it was a more convincing win for Labour in the other two constituencies in Tower Hamlets. In Stratford & Bow, Labour’s Uma Kumaran won by a margin of 11,634. In Poplar & Limehouse, Labour’s Apsana Begum won by a margin of 12,560. There wasn’t a concerted pro-Palestinian campaign to defeat Kumaran and Begum in the same way that there was against Ali, who abstained from a Gaza ceasefire vote in November last year.
Below’s chart shows all the results for each constituency. For a detailed breakdown see the election results for Stratford and Bow, and the election results for Poplar & Limehouse.
Historic election results
In 2024, we have a new constituency of Bethnal Green & Stepney. In previous years this was Bethnal Green & Bow. Looking back over the last six general elections in Bethnal Green & Bow, we see a Labour stronghold throughout except for 2005, when George Galloway as the Respect candidate beat Labour’s Oona King by appealing to the anti-war spirit in Tower Hamlets during the Iraq war.